Secret key encryption is implemented by a sending party encrypting data to be transmitted using a key, transmitting the key and the encrypted data to a receiving party either separately or together over a network connection, and the receiving party using a same key to decrypt the received data. A public key infrastructure (hereafter “PKI”) is implemented by the sending party encrypting data to be transmitted using a public key corresponding to the receiving party, transmitting the encrypted data to the receiving party over a network connection, and the receiving party using its private key to decrypt the received data. However, the trust required for sharing both secret keys for secret key encryption and public keys for PKI is being breached at an alarmingly increasing rate among distributed network appliances, particularly in constrained situations such as securing a boot among multiple appliances or nodes over a network.